Dec. 5, 2022

Actionable Steps for The Best Laid Plans

In this episode Kristina shares the secret sauce recipe needed to achieve the goals you set for your business. How do you keep your plan in motion? Tune in to hear what Kristina discovered works for her and her team. From breaking your checklist of items down into simple, actionable steps and purposefully allotting time in your calendar to work on your business to respecting yourself and your business enough to set boundaries and realistic expectations, this episode will help make your allotted work time sacred and show you that prioritizing your business first will keep you moving towards success.

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Transcript

Kristina Stubblefield  00:00

Thank you for tuning in to WedPro Business Solutions. I'm your host, Kristina Stubblefield. As most of us are preparing for the new year, at the time of this recording, I hear a lot out there about strategies and planning. And today, what I want to focus on is making those plans happen. Like it can be great to strategize to come up with a plan or plans for your business. However, what do you need to do to achieve that plan? Well, you've got to have actionable steps. And a lot of times I find myself when I do coaching or consulting, it is helping people that may have already come up with a plan. But they need to know what are the actionable steps that they have to do? And possibly what are the order of importance that those need to be done in to get the plan in motion to keep the plan going. Because most of the time you have a plan, because you're headed to reaching your goals, you're working towards those goals. So when we talk about actionable steps, what I mean is, whether you want to work on your online presence or visibility, whether you want to book more events, whatever it is you want to accomplish, you have a plan, you're going to use social media, you're going to run ads, you're going to participate in wedding shows. But what are the actionable steps needed? If you're going to participate in a wedding show? What is your booth going to look like? Do you need print material? Do you need QR codes that are on actual signs? Do you need banners a backdrop? What props are you using in your booth, and I'm just using that as an example. Let's switch gears. And let's say that you want to book more events. And you want more people to know about your business because they need to know about you and be able to find you in order to inquire in order to get in your sales funnel for you to book the events. So you're going to run ads, well, what actionable steps are needed to run those ads, whether it be videos, because you've heard me probably talked before about how much video works most of the time better than graphics and potentially pictures. So what is the marketing assets that you need for the ads? Do you need to record video? Do you need branding photos? What is the wording? What's the content? What is the call to action. So what I've just mentioned are five steps that need to be completed in order to initiate the plan of running ads. And what I have found is a lot of times people do not break those items down, they just have on a list of paper run ads, update my website, update my Google listing. But let's be realistic. And I'm guilty of this, I promise you I am of saying you know I have these 10 items on a to do list. But to be honest with you, each of those items, there's probably three or four steps to each item. Therefore, what I find sometimes I don't a lot myself enough time that I truly need for that one to do item. So that's why I feel like it's really important to highlight coming up with the actionable steps like a checklist that need to be done in order to get the plan in motion. I hear a lot of people come up with plans. They have great intentions. I'm raising my hand, because I'm guilty of this as well. One thing I share with my audience is I'm going to be transparent. And I am not perfect about this but I am working on it. And the more wedding professionals and small businesses that I work with, I find that they have thought out some of what they want to do in a new year, a new quarter, a new product that they're launching or service, but they don't have a breakdown of the actionable steps they are for. A lot of times people don't start or people take a step and then they pause or they don't finish it which if you do not finish the steps needed, the plan is not going to get in motion, how are you going to reach your goals without the plan in motion. So, one other thing I want to talk about, because I've mentioned, I am guilty of not allowing myself enough time with to do items. And I have really tried over the past year or so to not have a piece of paper that has a list of to do items. Because what if something happens to that paper, I feel like I'm constantly carrying around a notebook. But really, that's to take notes, just so I can put them into our system, and make to do items for something that needs to be accomplished. So here's what I found. And I take a deep breath, because this is something I'm still working on. You have to make time in your schedule. To do the items, the actionable steps, your to do list. This applies far more greater than a strategic plan or planning for the new year or new quarter. This is something that I have found myself working with a number of people, you have a full day of meetings or appointments. But you have 10 items on a to do list that needs to be done. Where have you put in your schedule that you need time to do these? I wish they magically got done on their own, then be great. If someone has a magic wand out there, please let me know. But in all reality, this is really something that hits home for me, because I get myself where I like to take care of clients and put them first. And what I find is, I have four meetings in a day, I have 10 items on my to do list, how the hell am I getting all that accomplished? Well, I might be at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. And what I have found, and I've had many of people talk to me about this, coaches, friends, people in the business, you know, we talk about boundaries, we talk about expectations, that by goodness, you have got to respect yourself, you have to allocate time to get items done. This is for clients for your own business. And it may sound like I'm being harsh, but I'm looking at myself where I didn't this camera saying this to myself, I need to be respectful of myself, my team, because I'm the one that potentially could put us in a pickle by taking on my calendar, too many meetings on top of a list of 10 items that need to be done that I need to be the one working on and I have not blocked off time in my schedule to get these items completed. Some of these items could potentially hold up my team from doing something they need to do. And that is probably been one of the most realizations I've had recently is this doesn't just affect me. And when I'm sharing this to you, we we give ourselves a cushion with working on client projects and things like this. I'd like to be a firm believer that we've not missed deadlines that we have done what we're supposed to do for our clients what we've been contracted to do, to be honest with you, I hope in almost all cases, it's been 110% Not just 100% so when I'm sharing this transparency with you, I'm not saying that this stuff affects the way our business runs and stuff like this. Heck no what it comes down to is affecting me personally affecting my husband. We work together so when I put myself in a pinch with my time and it's 6pm at night I'm done with meetings. But guess what, I still have my to do list from this morning. And so I share this with you to say again as we're going into a new year and you can be listening to this down the road and be going into a new month a new quarter. Allow yourself time in your schedule your calendar however it is you do a planner that you carry it doesn't matter. Allow yourself time to work on those items. Not to just have a barely enough time to

 

Kristina Stubblefield  10:00

check them off. And just in doing that recently, I have felt a sense of relief that, wow, okay, I can do this. It doesn't have to be Helter Skelter. Because guess who has control of their schedule? You do. No one else has control of it, but you or they shouldn't let me say it that way, you should be the one setting your schedule your calendar, however that goes. And this comes from someone that uses online appointment booking, I use online project time where they need, I need a client to pick a one hour two hour or three hour window of time where we've got to do collaborations on a project. So I use a lot of online scheduling. And that's why my calendar is very sacred to me as far as that's what I operate from. Now using a system that puts my meetings, you know, my calendar stuff in with my to do items and things like that. Again, it's just been another way we've evolved our business, to get to a point where we are a work in progress, there is a better way, and I want to share that with my listeners, I am still a work in progress. But I have found if I do not allow myself time in my schedule, it is very difficult for me to get to those to do items done. And where I'm referencing this in this episode is when you're working on a plan and you have actionable steps. Those actionable steps need dedicated time in your schedule, because to reach your goals to initiate or keep the plan moving. Those steps need to be done continually done. However it is depending on what you're working on. And that's what I want everybody to get too I want you to be able to achieve those goals. But Don't set yourself up to fail out of the gate. I've done that for far too long, not respecting my time and myself. As far as allotting myself the time to be able to complete those actionable steps during my day, not necessarily late at night or something rollover continuously, day after day. So I hope that you found this helpful. I hope that this is something that you can implement in your business. And if you're already implementing this, awesome, I would love to hear feedback from you. You can always go to my website and there is a little record button or you can send me a message. If you would like to you can join my free Facebook group. There is links wherever you're watching or listening to this video to get in where I share additional tips information and you can also connect with other wedding professionals. Until next time, everyone take care